


Erasure

by Howling_Harpy



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Closeted Character, Hurt/Comfort, Lack of Communication, Letters, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Parent-Child Relationship, Period-Typical Homophobia, Relationship Crisis, Reunions, Secret Relationship, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-13
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-30 04:56:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21422530
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Howling_Harpy/pseuds/Howling_Harpy
Summary: Carwood takes time off from work to visit his mother to get away from his lonely life in Boston.Ron is deployed to Korea and has been for a long while, and after spending a year alone and even longer lying to everyone, Carwood is not sure he wants to live like this anymore.
Relationships: Carwood Lipton/Ronald Speirs
Comments: 18
Kudos: 94
Collections: Loose Lips Sink Ships Prompt Meme





	Erasure

**Author's Note:**

> This was one of those fics that sort of gained a life of its own and I had no choice but to see where it got me. I had no idea it would turn out this long, but I got really into the story and the plot and I'm quite happy with the end result. 
> 
> Hopefully you'll like this too. If you read this, consider leaving kudos and a comment.
> 
> *
> 
> Disclaimer: This is a piece of fiction based on the HBO drama series and the actors’ portrayals in it. This has nothing to do with any real person represented in the series, and means no disrespect.

Carwood visited his mother as often as he could. Not only did he love his mother and helping her around, but the truth was that lately he hadn’t really enjoyed living in Boston. More and more often he found himself lingering on thoughts of home in Huntington, missing its quiet streets and open fields and forests, its quiet nights and familiar faces and air that was easy to breathe. When he caught himself on those moments just letting go of the daydream sparked homesickness. 

It wasn’t just on slow Sunday mornings either, but several times a week when he was at the office, driving through traffic or going out to restaurants to dine with colleagues or friends or clients. He missed Huntington when he was at work, out and about, or at home in his apartment. He missed it so often and so much that he was starting to grow worried about it, because Huntington wasn’t his home anymore, not for many years now. He lived in Boston, had lived for years and liked it too. 

But Huntington, and consequently his mother, had been on the forefront of his mind so much for so long, that in late July he decided to take a few days off work and make it a long weekend.

Driving to West Virginia was a bit of a trip, but as soon as Carwood had packed the car and left the urban area behind him, he knew he had made the right call. As soon as Boston was in his rear-view mirror, something in his chest eased and he was able to breathe more freely than in ages, perhaps in entire months, and the feeling got more and more powerful as he drove along.

What did he have in Boston anyway? An empty apartment, some friends and a large circle of casual acquaintances. That was all. Nothing that couldn’t be replaced or found elsewhere. 

Huntington had grown bigger in a decade, and livelier too. Carwood still recognized his hometown in it even though every time he visited something had changed; new theatre or a cinema or a restaurant had opened, new houses had been built, or one of those new apartment complexes had risen somewhere. Still the roads were the same, and he was at home when he navigated his way through the city, stopped by at a familiar florist to pick something for his mother, and then continued his way to her house.

The large two-storey house was still taking boarders. What had originally been just a way to make the ends meet had evolved into a successful business, one Margaret Lipton had a knack for and what she cherished, all of it evident in how good a condition the house had been kept. It had been a big house for a family of four, and hauntingly huge for a family of three, but with time it had regained its warmth.

When Lipton parked his car, he took a glance at the kitchen window just in time to see the lace curtains fall back in place, and smiled. 

He hauled his suitcase up the stairs, used his own key and stepped inside.

“Mom, I’m home,” he called out when he closed the door behind him. He put the suitcase on the floor, took off his hat and shook off his jacket. 

The entrance hall was quiet. The counter with the key cabinet behind it was empty, the guest book nowhere to be seen. Carwood was still satisfied with the work he had done with the counter, but the key cabinet started to look too simple and kind of rushed compared to his current skill level. He knew what he was going to get his mother for Christmas. 

“Hello, dear,” Margaret greeted when she appeared from the kitchen. “How was your trip?”

“Hi, Mom,” Carwood answered. “It was good, thanks. It’s good to be home.”

Margaret smiled and opened up her arms, beckoning her son to her. “Come along now, come greet your mother properly. It’s been ages since you last visited!”

Carwood did as he was asked and bent down to embrace his mother in her wheelchair. She was a sturdy woman still even though her age was starting to show, and he held her carefully, but her embrace was strong still. 

“I visited two months ago. It hasn’t been that long.”

“Nonsense. I’d welcome you every weekend if you wanted to,” she said. “And oh, flowers too.”

Carwood was still holding the bouquet of red and yellow flowers, something the florist had recommended. “Yeah, I thought I ought to bring something.”

“How lovely! Come and have coffee with me. It’s just the two of us now, no new guests until August. Let’s find a vase for the flowers too.” She wheeled backwards to the kitchen, turned her chair and went to put water in a kettle and then prepare a coffee pot. She did own a coffee maker but rarely used it, claiming that coffee brewed in the pot tasted better. 

Carwood went to take cups and spoons for them both and set them to the small kitchen table, then picked a flower vase and put the flowers in water.

“Have George, Millie and the kids visited?” he asked when he set the vase at the table close to the window. 

“Oh, yes, two weeks ago!” Margaret said. “They were on a family vacation, still are, I think. They stopped here for a week. You should see little Mark, he’s grown so much, and Patricia is such a little sweetheart. They are much easier children than you two ever were.”

Carwood huffed a quiet laugh, remembering very well what she was talking about. He went to hand her the coffee tin, but she ushered him back.

“No, you sit down. Just take a seat, I’ve got it,” she insisted, and Carwood knew better than to argue.

“How is Millie?” he asked.

“She is fantastic. The third child is well on the way, and she and George are both so excited. Everything’s going well.” She measured ground coffee beans into the pot, and the kettle was starting to sizzle. It would still be a moment, and Margaret turned away from the stove and came to sit by the table. 

“They asked about you,” she mentioned casually. 

Carwood had a feeling he knew where this was going. He didn’t want to talk about the regular topics even though he knew they’d come up every time without a fault, but no matter how inevitable, he wasn’t about to help them along.

Margaret waited for him to say something, but when he didn’t, she continued anyway: “They wanted me to ask you if you’d like to visit them. Maybe meet some friends of theirs. Everybody would welcome George’s older brother, especially since you’re so accomplished otherwise.”

Carwood just smiled politely. “That’s nice of them. I’ll give them a call and we’ll arrange something. I could take some time off.”

Margaret smiled, and Carwood thought he saw something like relief in her expression. “That’s good. The children will love to see you.”

“I love to see them too. They are good kids,” he said and meant it. It still made his head spin a bit, that his baby brother had grown up, married and become a father. Sometimes he felt surpassed by him, like he had taken a detour on the path of life and his younger brother had passed him, but he never let himself linger on those thoughts. They were too close to regret and envy, and those were things Carwood desperately wanted to avoid, especially now. 

The kettle whistled, and Margaret went to fill the coffee pot. It was her good pot, from the china set she had gotten pieces of as a wedding present, a tall pot with elegant angles and beautiful rose-red scenery painted on it. The pot and the cups and the plates going with it had rarely come out of the cabinet when Carwood and George had been little, as Margaret had explained that they were only for special occasions and important guests. But now as time had passed and she kept her home and business going by herself, she used her good china every time her sons visited. It was a small detail, but Carwood was still endeared by it. 

“How is work?” Margaret asked as she poured their cups full.

“It’s going great. It’s a lot of fun too,” Carwood said, thinking back to the glass factory. “We are modernizing our production methods, and I’m going to be sent to this expo to scout out more energy-efficient options.”

“That sounds interesting. It’s good you went to finish college.” 

“Yeah,” Carwood agreed. Even though it was a long time ago, he was still proud of his degree, and knew that his mother was as well. “I hope I’ll get to contribute to the new factory floor plan. I hope to put together a team of engineers so we could combine the new with the old.”

“Where’s this event going to take place?”

“Frankfurt, in Germany, in September.”

“Oh, travelling! That better pay well.”

“It does.” 

A moment of natural silence occurred. Carwood tried to read something in it, still on the edge because of the earlier conversation topic. 

And surely enough, when Margaret lowered her coffee cup the next time, there was once again worried lines on her face. “Carwood, are you sure you’re not working too much?” she asked.

“Mom… I’m fine. It’s fine, I like work, and it’s been going really well for me, for years,” Carwood answered, putting a soothing hand on his mother’s. 

Margaret turned her hand palm up so she could take his. Her arms had been strong, but her hands were small and dry and covered in wrinkles. “That’s right, you’ve been working so hard and well for years. I’m just worried… Isn’t there anything more to your life?” 

Carwood felt a guilty sting in his chest and his stomach turned uncomfortably. It was hard to look his mother in the eye and say the words: “I have everything I want in my life. Work is good, city-life is fun, and I have good friends around me. I’m happy.” 

Margaret searched his eyes for a moment, her deep brown eyes full of not only compassion of a mother but also steely focus looking for a lie. Being subjected to it made Carwood feel like a teenager, not an accomplished man in his thirties. 

“If you say so,” Margaret finally said, giving up and going back to her coffee.

Carwood didn’t say anything. It was the first time since he left Boston behind that Ron pushed his way into his thoughts, bright and clear like a muzzle flame, and now that he had remembered him Carwood felt guilty about pushing him away. His summary of his life had had considerable gap in it, and on top of that he had a gnawing feeling that he had lied to his mother even more than usual. 

“Are there any chores for me to do while I’m here?” Carwood asked, changing the subject.

“There’s always something to do,” Margaret quipped, suddenly more cheerful. “Would it be too much for me to ask you to fix the back porch? I think it needs a new railing.”

“Of course. I’ll take a look at it and see what we need,” Carwood agreed. “Anything else? Just say it, it’s cheaper if I take care of it and you won’t have to call anyone, and it’ll keep me busy.”

Margaret laughed and swatted him on the arm with the back of her hand. “Oh, you won’t have to use all your time here working! You’re visiting your mother and you’re on vacation! Let me spoil and feed you, it’s not like you have anyone to cook for you at home.”

That was both true and not. Ron was actually an excellent cook. He had taken to it with the same vigour he did with anything that required study and skill, and after years of practice he had culminated a fairly nice repertoire of dishes he excelled at. But Margaret was also right: Ron wasn’t home. He barely ever was. 

When the evening came, Carwood took his old room upstairs. It hadn’t been preserved as his room but was rented out like every free bedroom in the house, but something about it still felt familiar and safe. He took his suitcase up and set it on the single bed and started to take his things out. He had brought only casual clothes aside from the suit he was wearing, and thus nothing needed to be hanged, just put into a drawer. He set his pyjamas aside, then the little bag with his toothbrush and shaving kit, and then the only thing left in the case was the pile of letters, tied with a string.

Now that he saw them there, Carwood regretted bringing them. The entire point of running away from Boston had been to put some distance between them and think things through, to clear his thoughts and weigh his options. He couldn’t imagine how he had thought he would be able to do that with a pile of Ron’s letters with him.

The pile had every letter from the past year that Ron had sent him. Every one was opened and read multiple times, and they were kept in order, not according to date but according to Carwood’s own favourite system. 

The one on top was from two months ago and also the one he had read the most times, so many that the envelope was wrinkled and worn.

Now that the pile was in his hands, he didn’t seem to be able to put it down. His heart was heavy and he felt it beat painfully, and the longer he stared at that yellowish envelope with its American stamp and Korean postmark and his name and address scribbled on it in handwriting that he would recognize anywhere. Eventually, maybe worn down by the long drive and secure in his mother’s house, Lipton let go of his own principles, pulled the letter from under the string, put the rest of the letters safely back in the suitcase, then sat down on the bed with his favourite in hand.

He stared at the handwriting for a second longer, perhaps hoping for will to put it aside without getting to the content inside, but after such a long day he wasn’t strong enough. 

The envelope had been cut open with a letter-opener. The tear was neat and even, nothing like the eagerly torn ones he had kept during Ron’s last stay at a base, or from the beginning of his tour in Korea. 

He pulled the letter out, just one sheet of military stationary folded three times, and on it Ron’s handwriting. 

_Carwood,_

_It's a typhoon season here. Never have I known storms like this. The wind blows so hard that even Kansas knows nothing like it, the rain comes like from a showerhead, and all the while it’s still hot. They say it’s the sea, that it’s the tropical climate, and the locals tell us that it’s not the rain or the wind to worry about, it’s when the earth starts to move. It’s pretty much like I read from novels as a boy, about adventures deep in the heart of Africa. Very exciting. _

_I am a major now. I have a good raster of officers and even better soldiers under my command in this company. I still miss 101st, but this might come close. They did grumble and complain about the amount of rifle range practice that I issued, but we are seeing the results now: Every man is a good shot. I want to say excellent, but as of now that would be exaggerating (there are several deserving of the praise, but not all by any means). What we have achieved here is the complete absence of lousy shots. There’s no wasting ammo, no hesitation, and no gun safety violations. Remember that private who carelessly pointed his gun at me, and to add insult to injury, did so accidentally? (I must have told you, if it got past the censors.) After a stern talking to for the entire company, there hasn’t been any incidents like that. I am pleased. There will be no accidental deaths here. _

_Only two months left. I am by no means bored or anxious to leave here and return Stateside, but I do want to see you. I hope you haven’t rented my bedroom forward, my friend. I would very much like to have a place to sleep waiting for me. I might not be bored, but I have been thinking about seeing my friend again. Perhaps we could have dinner together when I return and catch up a little? I hope you have time. _

_I put a photograph of myself to this letter. Would you please be so kind and see that it gets to my girl? It would be inappropriate to write her so directly, but if she’s still waiting for me, this might cheer her up a bit. Pass her my kindest feelings, alright? _

_Also, if you’d be so kind, could you make a call to my mother? I know she worries, and I do write to her as well, but I think she’d appreciate it if she could get my regards as often as possible._

_You are a dear friend. See you soon._

_Warm regards,  
Ron_

The photograph was there in the envelope as well, and after reading the letter Carwood pulled out the small rectangle of hard photopaper. It was taken at a bus station somewhere, at least judging by the large, barely visible vehicles in the background, and in the middle of the picture stood Ron in full uniform, service cap on top of his dark hair and his hands behind his back, smiling to the camera. Behind the picture Ron had scribbled with a ballpoint pen the words: “To darling Carrie”. 

Carwood sighed. Reading Ron’s letters always made the ache inside his chest throb deeper, and he didn’t know why he had done it now. Getting a new letter and reading it for the first time always removed the yearning for a moment, but when he read the letters repeatedly the ache returned and like a poked infection got worse. 

Only he couldn’t help himself, this letter had it all. It had kind regards from Ron and two whole paragraphs about his thoughts and daily life, it had thoughts about them, it had concrete plans for their soon-to-be reunion, and it had affection. 

It wasn’t like either one of them could be open about it given how some of the letters were opened and read, but even though Carwood understood why, he was still wounded by the subdued tone. He found himself clinging to every single even a little kind word meant for him, and if the letter had none, he would be bitterly disappointed. 

It felt strange to be demoted to Ron’s friend, and even stranger to have a part of himself chopped off and made into some imaginary character of a woman. The cover identity “Carrie” felt both like something dangerously close to his real name, and like an insult from the schoolyard where no one had known how to pronounce his name. Both filled him with discomfort even though he knew it had to be that way.

Carwood was tired, and mulling over these things made him feel even more so. He sighed, set the letter and the photograph along with the envelope on the nightstand and went to brush his teeth. When he got back, he changed into pyjamas, turned off the light and got into bed. 

Still there was something restless in him, something that flared every now and then, something uncomfortable and something just a bit short from pain. He reached over to turn the lamp on the nightstand back on and picked up the letter again. 

He felt the familiar frustration about how short it was and then the following sting of guilt since he knew that Ron was busy, then read the entire thing again. 

He skimmed hastily over things like _I am by no means bored or anxious to leave here_ and _if she’s still waiting_ and instead lingered on _I’ve been thinking of seeing my friend again_ and _to my girl_ and _you are a dear friend_. ‘Thinking about you, you are my guy, you are dear’. That’s what those really meant.

Dear. His dear. His darling Carrie. 

Carwood took a shuddering inhale, held it and slowly let it out. This always happened when he let himself think too much alone in the dark. It seemed like none of his composure or self-control stayed up as late as he did. He wiped his eyes, put both the letter and the photograph back into the envelope and hid it in a drawer on the nightstand. As soon as it was out of his hands and sight, he decisively turned his back to it, pulled the covers up to his chin and closed his eyes.

The next morning dawned and turned into another beautiful summer day. Carwood helped Margaret cook breakfast for them both, a habit they had gotten into while they had been running the boarding house together, and after eating they went straight out to the back porch to see what was to be done there. 

“I don’t want to bother you too much, dear, but giving how good you are at this stuff…”

Carwood was already inspecting the boards and the railing of the porch, waving his hand dismissively back at her. “Of course I’ll fix it up for you, Mom. I’ll do it gladly,” he promised. The boards were mostly fine, but the rails and the stairs had started to go soft and give. Moisture had gotten into the wood and started to slowly rot it. “I’ve even learned some new things. I’ll make you new, prettier rails here, and fix you a new ramp by the the stairs.”

Margaret sighed, giving up with the polite excuses. “You’re a good son, Carwood,” she said with warmth and left him to his work. 

Fixing the porch meant a trip to the hardware store. The house still had an impressive collection of tools, screws and nails, paintbrushes and varnish, but the project was still lacking some special equipment, and he needed wood. Shopping for materials, getting a new roll of sandpaper and a better file while mentally drafting plans pushed all other thoughts Carwood had to the back of his mind. 

He had been practising woodcarving and decorating, really the only kind of woodworking that was small-scaled and neat enough to be done in an apartment. Despite his initial doubts, Carwood had found he loved working on finer details with great care, and now the skills proved themselves worthy. 

When he got back, the first thing to do of course was to tear down the old that was to be replaced. He was glad he had packed casual clothes with him, and after putting on a pair of good gloves and fetching the toolbox, he got to work. 

He started by tearing down the railings, then moving onto the stairs, which he’d have to replace first for the sake of convenience. The ramp that had been built for Margaret’s wheelchair was been sufficient, but in retrospect a bit too steep to be completely comfortable. 

As the porch rails were coming apart, Carwood got more and more excited about the project. As it had been the railing had been serviceable, but nothing special: Simple smoothed boards on some block spindles, nothing special, no decorations, not even proper paint. The house was old and had a breath of classic elegance to it, and the simplistic porch had clashed with it. Now there was a good chance to make something better of it, something fittingly elegant and pretty. 

When he really got into the work, Carwood forgot himself into it. Hours passed on wings as he worked, and the next time he came to was when the sun was high and Margaret came out to the porch to see how he was doing. 

“Take a break and come drink something!” Margaret called. She was stuck by the door on the other side of the porch now that Carwood had spread his tools all over the floor and torn away the stairs and a few boards by them. 

Being snapped out of his flow made Carwood realize how the summer day had gotten almost smoulderingly hot. Sweat was running down his temples and the back of his neck, and his shirt was wet and sticking to his skin. He had spent probably too long in the sun and he was thirsty. 

Nimbly he climbed up to the porch, jumped over the bare structures and found his way to the clear, where his mother was waiting for him with a tall glass of lemonade. 

She offered him the glass but was shaking her head at his antics. “Really, Carwood? You could have just gone around and climbed up from the side instead of those acrobatics. Didn’t they teach you anything about responsibilities in the army?” 

Carwood grinned at her. “In the paratroopers, Mom? If they taught me anything, it’s how to jump.” He was in a significantly better mood now after eight hours of sleep and doing something physical he was good at. He was making faster progress than he had anticipated, and it was all looking good. He had missed larger projects than little carvings done at a desk, and in passing considered if he should start building furniture. Their living-room was spacious enough, and it wasn’t like he entertained home so often that he couldn’t dedicate a corner to his projects. 

“How is it coming along?” Margaret asked as soon as he had emptied the glass. 

“It’s going really well,” Carwood said, smiling. “I’ll be finished with it by tomorrow. Listen, I was thinking of doing something a bit different there. I’ve been practising woodcarving, and I’d like to give the porch something of a style that goes better with the house. Would that be okay? Oh, and do you want colour or just the natural wood?”

He was just going at it, trying to get all his ideas out there and get his mother’s opinion so that the style would be to her liking, but as he was talking something melancholic sneaked into her expression. Carwood didn’t think men usually noticed something like that, when their mother’s smile didn’t falter but something in her eyes shifted to a sadder side, but he was used to watching her emotions closely. But even so, he hadn’t learned how to ask her about that.

He also had a feeling that they were enough alike that there was something in his eyes too, because suddenly Margaret cast her gaze aside and the melancholy was quickly hidden. “You’re so like your father sometimes when you’re working,” she said fondly and sighed, a distant look in her eyes. For a moment she seemed to linger in a faraway memory, in blissful times decades behind, but then she shook herself from her thoughts and turned to look back up to Carwood. “You’re a good son, Carwood. To come here and work on an old woman’s porch… I know I’ve done something right. It wasn’t easy to raise you by myself, you know.”

She was fiddling with her hands, one on the armrest of her wheelchair and one in her lap, and Carwood leaned down to put his hand on top of hers. 

“It’s no problem, Mom. Of course I’ll help you in any way I can,” he assured her. 

Margaret took a deep breath and then laughed, her voice trying to be lighter than it was. She brought her other hand to pat the back of Carwood’s. “What you need is a house of your own! I can’t imagine there’s too much to do in an apartment.”

Carwood chuckled. This was one of those moments when he was particularly aware of how much he took after his mother. “No, there isn’t,” he admitted. For a moment he hesitated, swooping too near to the world of lies again, but then again there was also a truth to them. “I’ve actually been thinking of moving out.”

Margaret looked up in surprise. “Oh, really?”

“Yes,” Carwood said. “The urban area isn’t really that comfortable, at least not on Boston’s scale. Like you said, I might want a house. Besides, the company is expanding. There are so many different locations, even overseas, that I could get transferred to if I just work hard enough for maybe a year more and then apply.” It was a little terrifying to say this much out loud. Carwood had been thinking about it for at least six months but hadn’t told a soul. Suddenly he wondered if he had come to visit his mother to confess and be absolved. 

“That sounds… That sounds quite wonderful, actually,” Margaret said, somewhat careful with her words like she always was when she was sprang with new information. It was probably the old instinct of a businesswoman that sensed when something wasn’t quite a done deal yet. “But you did say you enjoyed the city life?”

Carwood shrugged. “There are a lot of other cities. It doesn’t have to be Boston.”

“Well then!” Margaret said, clearly pleased. She was still holding Carwood’s hand, but with a heavy pat let it go. The moment of shared vulnerability passed. “It really sounds like your career is taking off. I’m so proud of you, dear!”

Carwood smiled and felt a flush of warm contentment despite all the things his mother didn’t and would never know. Work was indeed going great and he didn’t have to lie about that, but it hurt not to be able to ask advice on the harder decision he was facing. Ron’s face came to his thoughts again in the form of the photograph he had looked at last night. There was a man who had smiled just for him, away on the other side of the world. 

They lingered on the porch in the heat of the summer day. Margaret didn’t seem to mind it one bit, just turned her face towards the sun and basked in it. Carwood stood by her and watched the clouds drifting by, cooling down despite the sun now that he wasn’t working. 

“If you moved, you’d meet some new people,” Margaret said in a mellow tone.

Carwood took that they’d talk a bit longer, so he came to sit on the porch next to her. “I would. It would be nice.” He thought about the possibility to moving across the entire continent and seeing buddies that lived there, or maybe even pursuing the position in the International Department and travelling.

“Do you think you’d finally be able to think about getting married again?” she asked, gently.

Carwood felt like a bucket of cold water had been dumped on him. “I don’t know, Mom,” he muttered. 

Margaret touched his shoulder, trying to comfort what wasn’t really the matter. “There are a lot of great women out there. Just because you’re divorced doesn’t mean you don’t deserve a chance. The world is changing, people are much more tolerant of many things now, and you’re a fighting man on top of that. I’m sure you’d have luck with it if you just tried a bit.”

Carwood didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything. Unfortunately that meant that Margaret thought she hadn’t made her point clear, and so she pressed on.

“I don’t want you to think I want to dictate how you live your life, but it hurts me to see you go on alone,” she said, so gently it hurt. “George and Millie are so happy together. I want the same happiness for you, with a good wife and a house and children of your own. You’re such a good uncle, you’d make a good father too. You deserve to have a family, Carwood. You do, really.”

Carwood sat quietly. He didn’t know what to do with the feelings his mother’s words evoked in him. On one hand he basked in her love and felt his heart grow tender in how badly she wished all those good things for him, but at the same time there was the cold breeze of reality that he couldn’t speak. He couldn’t have those things, and there were no words to tell her that. 

Margaret squeezed his shoulder. “I’m so sorry that she left you. You were so in love, you and Mary-Ann. She should have waited."

Carwood shrugged. “I took too long. Three years, Mom. She wanted to live her life. I can’t blame her for that.” 

“Broken heart still hurts, baby,” she said quietly. 

Carwood nodded. He knew about broken hearts alright, even if he didn’t’ want to. “I’m going to get back to work now, okay?” he said.

Margaret’s hand slipped from his shoulder. “You do that. I’ll call you in for dinner when it’s done.”

Carwood got to work past the baking midday sun and long into the afternoon. After a few hiccups he slipped back into the flow and the work was swift. He was an old hand at sanding wood, and a bulk of the work was routine. He didn’t make mistakes or need to get anything, everything was well-planned and easy sailing once he got into it, and the carving was so much fun he completely forgot himself into it.

Dinner was ready late in the afternoon, and by then Carwood had made leaps of progress. He doubted he’d do much after eating, so he gathered up the tools, covered the materials and cleaned up the workspace before going back inside. 

He showered before dinner and changed into clean clothes after a long day of sweating in the sun. July in West Virginia wasn’t usually this brutal, but this year seemed to have a few truly scorching weeks. While in the shower with his head bent under the spray of cool water he anticipated the August storms. After heat waves there were always harsh winds and thunder. He wondered why the nature demanded that blissful, hot summer days had to be followed by equally heavy storms. He wondered if typhoons were made like that too.

Margaret had cooked a hearty dinner of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and steamed peas. She had been cunning this time and set the table before calling him inside to eat, and Carwood arrived at a readily set table. 

Margaret ushered Carwood to help himself, and from experience Carwood knew to go along with it and not even try to win the battle of polite wills with his mother. 

When they both had a plate in front of them and they started to eat, Carwood hesitated for a second but decided to speak up: “Mom, I got to ask you something.”

“What is it, dear?”

“If I end up moving out of Boston, what should I tell Ron?”

Margaret looked at him for a few seconds and frowned. “Who was Ron again?”

Carwood suppressed a wince and kept a straight face. “He’s the buddy I rented the second bedroom to.”

“Oh, right, him,” Margaret said, but clearly didn’t have much to remember, just the name. “What about him?”

Carwood shifted on his seat, trying to make it look like he was just getting more comfortable and not squirming. He pushed a few peas around his plate with his fork and watched them rolling around aimlessly, narrowly escaping the spikes of the fork and avoiding the inevitable. “Well, what should I tell him? If I’m moving out, he’s going to have to move out too. And it’s been nice and convenient for the both of us, with him serving overseas and all. He has some place to put his stuff, and when he’s home, we have company from each other.”

Margaret shrugged. “You’ll just have to give him a notice well in advance, and he’s going to find somewhere else to stay. He’s with the army, I can’t imagine that being too hard.”

Carwood kept pushing the peas around, making little piles and then breaking them up. “Yeah, I suppose that’s that. He’s barely ever even there, so…” He quickly swallowed the rest of the sentence, already saying too much and allowing it to get worse by every word. He glanced subtly at Margaret, who had already picked up on his tone and was studying him more closely. Carwood felt suddenly on edge.

“Are you afraid you’ll feel lonely? Is that it?” Margaret asked.

Carwood shifted again, rigid and put on the spot. “No, no really… He’s never home anyway, it’s just…”

“What?”

“Awkward, I guess. We are buddies, after all.”

“Hm.” Margaret was quiet for a while. She thought it over and clearly picked her words carefully. “I’m not going to pretend that I understand what you boys went through over there,” she started cautiously, “but surely whatever you owe him has been paid off by now. You’re not crossing your friend by moving on. You have your own life to live, and he has his. There’s no reason to mourn over a convenient arrangement, dear.” 

Her words were spoken kindly and reasonably, and they were good advice, only they were carving his chest hollow and making him lose all his appetite. Speaking these things aloud with someone made them more real, and the more Carwood discussed moving out and leaving Ron behind, the less he liked the idea, and additionally he realized how much it hurt.

He didn’t know what he thought. He wanted out of Boston and onto new job prospects, probably move into a house instead of an apartment, and he didn’t want to keep living on scraps of kindly-worded letters and photographs and coded phrases he had to imagine addressed to him. But he didn’t want to leave Ron, and that was what made the rest impossible. 

“You’re right, Mom. Thanks,” he said, forced a smile and started shovelling food into his mouth even though he didn’t have a taste for it anymore. 

His hollow chest ached and made him feel chilly down to his core. Maybe his mother was more correct than she could ever even know: Maybe all they had was a convenient arrangement. He didn’t want to leave Ron, but wasn’t his entire problem that he didn’t have Ron in the first place? What they had was an arrangement that came to an actual effect every once in a while with months or even years between the occasions. 

Ron was a soldier and Carwood had known that from the very beginning, but in the beginning he had been sure they could make it work. But when they had decided that, it had been a magical, picture-perfect summer in Austria. They had been in paradise, miraculously alive, full of hope and mad with joy and infatuation, and they had come together like gunpowder and sparks.

But the reality was much bleaker, much less romantic, and Carwood felt foolish and ungrateful on these moments when he actually missed the occupation and even the war, a little bit. They had both been in uniform, side by side, standing steadfast in front of anything and everything, and nothing had felt impossible for them. 

Now only Ron was in uniform, and far away fighting with a new battalion, with new brothers in arms, and all Carwood was to him was a pen-pal worthy of a few paragraphs twice a month. 

After dinner Carwood went back to work. After the heavy dinner table conversation the thoughtless flow didn’t return, but his mind kept working. It seemed that he had unlocked something in his thoughts and cleared it up. That was why he had taken this trip in the first place, but he didn’t feel any better. Maybe he even felt worse, he thought in passing when he was finishing with the boards on the porch railing. He had felt stuck for the longest time, but now he felt like a rabbit that had ripped its leg free from a trap: He was still hurt, and there was no going back to the happy days of skipping through summer meadows. 

He got sketching paper from the workshop in the basement to make exact plans for the railing. He had an idea what he wanted, but now it was time to draw the exact plans with measurements. He had a feeling that Margaret would like something pretty and smooth, something classical with a romantic touch, and that was what he planned to do. 

He had cut the pieces needed and was busy cutting them into rough shape with a bowsaw and a chisel when Margaret came out again, this time with something else than a refreshment – the opposite, actually.

“You got a telegram,” she announcement, a little yellow envelope sitting in her lap when she rolled her wheelchair onto the porch. 

“Oh, right. I turned all my mail here just in case,” Carwood said and went up the stairs to get the telegram. 

Margaret handed the little envelope to him while letting her appreciative gaze circle the new porch. She nodded to herself with a small smile on her lips, clearly pleased with the progress, but Carwood was too preoccupied with the envelope to enjoy the subtle praise.

He ripped it open and found a short message.

_On the move STOP Returning to US next Friday STOP Meet me at the train station at noon STOP Maj Speirs FULL STOP_

Carwood swallowed, suddenly overwhelmed and his throat dry. Ron had been gone for over a year, and now he was coming home all of a sudden in less than a week. Carwood could hardly believe it, and the way he stared at the single line of text must have looked worrisome, because Margaret asked: “Is it bad news?”

Carwood snapped out of the flood of emotion that threatened to drown him. He cleared his throat and shook his head. “Oh, no, not at all. It’s just that Ron is coming home from Korea and needs a ride from the train station, that’s all.” 

“Demanding lodger, that one,” Margaret said with a click of her tongue. 

“A little, yeah. I don’t mind,” Carwood replied, stuffed the telegram into his pocket and got back to work.

He got a lot of done that day, but by the evening decided to leave the rest for the next day. He spent the evening inside with his mother, going over the boarding house’s books with her as new guests would be arriving late in August, then they had supper and watched a late-night program on television. It was lovely being home, and late in the comfort of the living-room it felt like there couldn’t be any bad things in the world. Carwood made a point of enjoying the stable warmth of the home as he didn’t know what was waiting for him in a week’s time.

At first he was worried that he couldn’t sleep after getting such huge news all of a sudden, but the long day of physical work took care of that for him. He put the telegram in the pile of letters he had brought, took a fast glance at the photograph and felt a strange flip of his heart like it was tripping over confusing emotions. Luckily he was too tired to worry about any of it, and as soon as he got into bed, he fell asleep. 

On Sunday he got up early enough to cook breakfast for his mother, who was besides herself when she got up and came to a set table, although she performed all the proper apologies and marvelling about the effort and bother it must have been. Carwood wouldn’t have any of it, simply brought coffee and a plate of pancakes for her, and then just smiled when she wondered how his cooking had improved.

The porch was well within schedule too, and Carwood got to spend all morning and early afternoon just carving and finishing up. He knew he had to drive back to Boston the same day and that he’d be back home so late it would be technically morning, but he didn’t think he’d go to the office before lunch hour anyway so he didn’t worry about it. 

The final form of the porch was simple because of the limited time, but still better than what had been before. He had made the railing going around the porch into an actual shape instead of just a block of wood, smooth to hand with decorative lines carved into the rounded side. The same theme continued with the stairs, where he had remade all eight spindles into delicate beautiful things with curves and round shapes. 

He cleaned up all the chips and sawdust and leftover pieces of wood from the lawn and sweeped the porch, and only when it was all done he allowed himself to admire his handiwork. If he could do anything in the future, it would be more of this. 

He managed to pack up all his things and get on the road around five in the afternoon. He knew he had minimum seven hours on the road ahead, but he couldn’t bring himself to mind. He was used to travelling, and there was something comforting about being on the road. It was like time and his everyday life didn’t actually exist when he was driving on the long, brand new roads between the states. There was nothing no worry about, the radio played song after song of good tunes, and he stopped for gas and food at a roadside diner. 

The road to Massachusetts was comfortingly long and for a moment there Carwood wished he could stay on it forever. But eventually he drove past a sign welcoming him back, and he knew that from there it was only a few hours to Boston. 

It was strange to come home to the city after a long weekend in a small town in West Virginia. Carwood had been far away from home for years once so living a few hours to the north shouldn’t have been a problem, and yet it was. He wondered if it was because he was worried about his mother being all alone, or had it more to do with his troubles here in Boston more generally.

The clock on the kitchen wall of his apartment showed that it was two in the morning, so technically Monday. Ron would be coming home on Friday. Only four days, and then Friday would come. It felt unreal. 

Carwood took his suitcase to his bedroom, sorted through the laundry and clean clothes, then put everything back in their proper places. The letters from Ron he hesitated with. He knew he shouldn’t have kept them in the first place and that he should throw them away, but eventually he caved in under his heavy heart and put them back into the drawer of his nightstand. 

After a long drive he slept well, and by ten the next morning he was back at work. 

The restful weekend was gone, and now Carwood realized with a shock that he was looking ahead of his last week as a person who lived alone. He couldn’t decide how he felt about it, and so his heart seemed to have come to a resolution to feel everything: He was excited, he was afraid. He was anxious, and he was restless. Friday couldn’t come fast enough, and he didn’t want it to ever come.

He wondered if the clock was ticking down on them, and then again his body hadn’t felt this achingly lonely since the first month when Ron had shipped out. His feelings were tangled up and desperate, and his body yearned for touch like it had only now became aware how it had been starved of it.

The worst part was that Carwood couldn’t tell anyone about any of it. His week at work passed in a haze, and he decided to place multiple orders for material catalogues and samples from overseas so he’d have an excuse to just sit and wait for them instead of working. 

By Friday he was a mess. Ron had sent another telegram giving him the exact time when he was supposed to arrive at the station, and Carwood couldn’t focus on anything else that day except on anticipating that. 

His train would arrive at six p.m. Carwood was at the station a quarter past five. 

There was a tingling in his whole body, an electric itch that made him restless on his feet and stopped him from sitting down for too long. He could have read the day’s paper, but he couldn’t stop himself from glancing at the clock every two minutes. 

After half past five the station was starting to become more and more crowded. Carwood saw many young women and entire families, parents and young mothers with their children, all of them predictably waiting for someone who would be on that train. He wondered if every serviceman from Boston would be on the same train, and then worried how he’d find Ron. 

The train arrived exactly when it was supposed to and pulled in to the station impossibly slowly. The crowd by then was substantial, and when the passengers were finally let out of the train, they had to struggle to fit on the platform. 

Suddenly the station was full of soldiers. Carwood’s throat was dry and his heart hammered against his sternum, and he had to recognize a kinship with many young women around him, all standing on the tips of their toes and craning their necks, anxiously looking for their men. 

A petite woman in a blooming pink and yellow dress and a small, fashionable straw hat pinned on top of her hairdo standing near Carwood suddenly screamed, jumped and dashed into the arms of a young sergeant. He dropped his army pack that he had been holding and caught the woman in his arms, spinning her around when she draped her arms around his neck and kissed him. 

Her skirts flowed around as she was spun like on a dancefloor before her sweetheart finally set her down on her feet, but only to tip her back and kiss her once again. 

People had to step around them and many couples like them, and Carwood turned his gaze away from them to start searching for Ron again, but realized that he had been spotted first and that Ron was already making his way towards him.

Carwood felt his heart skip a beat when he locked eyes with him. 

He recognized the man easily, an impressive figure in a paratrooper’s glass A uniform with oak leaves on his collar and a service cap on his black hair, every brass button and boots shining. He had his pack casually swung over one shoulder like it weighed nothing, and he was smiling. 

Helplessly Carwood felt an answering smile rising on his own face, and he started towards Ron like the few steps hurrying their reunion made any difference.

They came toe to toe and stopped. There was no snapping the tension between them. 

“Hello, Carwood,” Ron greeted.

“Hello, Ron. Nice to see you again,” Carwood replied. 

A man cleared his throat, and only then Carwood noticed that there was another soldier standing next to Ron. A captain from the same unit as Ron was hovering right next to him, clearly waiting to be introduced. Carwood wondered how he hadn’t noticed him immediately. 

“Oh, right,” Ron said and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Leslie, this is Carwood Lipton. He rents me a room here in Boston. Carwood, this is Captain Leslie. He was my intelligence officer until yesterday.”

Carwood swallowed down all his emotion and went to shake the captain’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Captain. Welcome back.” 

“Hello to you too,” Captain Leslie said with a smile. He had a strong Boston accent and blond curly hair. He was a bit shorter than Ron and stood up just as straight in his matching uniform. “I hope it’s not a bother, but Speirs here said something about dinner. I get that you’re here to pick him up, so why don’t you join us, huh?” 

Carwood couldn’t stop confusion from creeping in his expression. He was still shaking the man’s hand, and his grip was tight. He glanced questioningly at Ron, but all he got back was a friendly smile. 

“I – Yeah, sure. I could eat,” Carwood answered, refusing to let the emotional whiplash to get the better of him. “There’s a place a few blocks from here that I like, they serve a good steak. You must both be hungry.” 

The restaurant was of decent size and price-range, not too fancy but fancy enough to warrant tablecloths and cotton napkins. It was packed but still nice, the atmosphere was great and the food delicious, and still Carwood felt miserable there, sitting on the other side of the table and pretending to be Ron’s convenient arrangement. 

It was a combination of painfully normal and bizarre to dine together like that. Under normal circumstances Carwood wouldn’t have minded going out with Ron’s army buddies and mostly listening to them co-telling their anecdotes, but today was different. He had nothing against Captain Leslie, an otherwise pleasant man and seemingly a professional soldier, but Carwood didn’t want to meet anyone or socialize that day, and so couldn’t help but to be annoyed. Even the way Leslie perked up when Ron mentioned that he and Carwood had served together just underlined how little Ron’s friends knew about him. 

For a moment there he wished for a signal from Ron, some sort of a sign that Captain Leslie was in on the secret and perhaps like them, but no such signal came. Ron offered Carwood a cigarette after the meal, but under the eyes of a stranger Carwood was too nervous to even touch Ron’s hand when he gave him light. 

The drive home was silent even though they were finally alone. Whatever had been casual and relaxed between them at the station and in the restaurant had now slipped away like a nightshift from a maiden in a bedroom, all pretence at modesty gone. Something was winding up tight between them, something unresolved and painful, something unnaturally prolonged. Too many thoughts and possibilities and doubts had made themselves known during the past six months that Carwood could have said that it was only anticipation. More than anything he wished he could have been like that woman in pink and yellow who could cry out in joy and then leap into her soldier’s arms. 

But he wasn’t. They weren’t. Something had been building up for too long, and now it was suffocating and in pain like a sailor in a sinking submarine. 

They didn’t speak while they drove, nor did they speak when Carwood parked the car and Ron got out to pick up his pack from the backseat. It was an early Friday evening and Boston was just getting lively, but they went home, silently dragging up the stairs to their apartment. 

Ron stepped ahead of Carwood and had his key ready, like unlocking the door to his apartment was one of the rites he needed when he came home. Carwood didn’t have any problem with that, he just allowed Ron his space and followed. 

Ron went inside first, making a b-line to his room to drop his stuff there. Carwood closed the door after them and put his hat on the shelf and hanged up his summer coat. He didn’t hear Ron when he came back to the hallway, only felt him when he was suddenly in his space and grabbed his wrist. 

Carwood jumped back at the sudden contact and yanked his hand back like Ron’s touch hurt. He didn’t even know why he had reacted like that even with all the mixed feelings, and for a moment he just held his own arm against his chest and wondered about that.

Then he lifted his gaze up to Ron, who was standing still as if frozen with an unreadable look in his eyes. His expression had steeled over in a way Carwood knew it did when he wanted to cover something weak about himself, and with a sinking feeling Carwood realized it was too late to explain. 

Ron took a step back and averted his eyes. “I’ll just go and unpack.” 

“Sure,” Carwood muttered, but Ron was already gone. 

That was an awful beginning, Carwood recognized that much with a heavy sigh.

For an hour more they were quiet and isolated in their own corners of the apartment. Ron rummaged around in his bedroom for a while and then went to shower, while Carwood simply stood on the other end of the apartment in his bedroom, trying to decide what to do. He listened to the sound of running water coming from the bathroom and scolded himself for stalling, and now for hesitating even though he knew what he needed to do. Whenever they fought, the kitchen was usually the place where they went when they were ready to talk, and so it had become a place where either one of them could just go and sit down as a proposal for the other to join. 

The kitchen and the living-room were both in the middle of their apartment with bedrooms on either side, so technically they could just stay in their own rooms with two whole rooms between them and pretend they actually were just roommates. 

But it couldn’t go on like that and Carwood knew that they both knew it. They couldn’t just come home like this, not speak and then go to bed. It was out of the question, but still the kitchen felt like hostile territory and he didn’t want to go there. 

Of course he had to. When Carwood stepped in there, Ron wasn’t there yet, so he simply poured himself a glass of water and sat at the table. 

He didn’t have the time to take but a one sip before Ron appeared in the open doorway. He had changed into dark grey slacks and a casual blue shirt, and there was a storm in his eyes when he stepped in. He cut the chase before it had even begun and started to explain: “Look, I’m sorry about Leslie. He didn’t know I lived in Boston and when he found out he was really excited. I try not to talk about my private life, and that really backfired on me. There was nothing I could have said.”

“It’s not Leslie,” Carwood cut in. 

A moment a stone heavy silence followed. Ron pinched his mouth shut and looked undecisive for a second, and Carwood knew he recognized the serious atmosphere for exactly what it was. 

Ron wasn’t a man prone to denial any more than retreat, and with two long striding steps he was by the table, pulled out a chair for himself and sat down. He put his hands on the table and laced his fingers together. For a moment he just stared at the tabletop as if preparing for something. 

“What is it?” he demanded without lifting his eyes.

“I need to talk to you about something,” Carwood said, his voice colourless. His throat felt dry like he had been eating sand. He took a sip from the glass, but when he tried to speak again, he made a hoarse sound he didn’t recognize. He cleared his throat and couldn’t bear to look at Ron, who in turn clenched his jaw and looked just about ready to head to battle.

When Carwood didn’t find the words, Ron decided to help him along.

“You’re not happy.” He said it with certainty, like he had been aware of it for some time.

There was no circling around the issue, not with Ron’s head-on approach that Carwood knew from experience wouldn’t give, so he just shook his head. “No, I’m not.”

From the corner of his eye he saw Ron nodding, just once and sharply.

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something too,” Ron countered. His voice was level and cool, and Carwood often wondered would someone who hadn’t served with him recognize the carefully maintained cover for what it was.

“Yeah?” he asked and had a nasty feeling that he had detected something foretelling this conversation from Ron’s stilted letters.

But instead of starting to lay down arrangements for separation, Ron leaned forward so that he could look Carwood in the eye, hands still on the table and the look in his eyes serious. “Do you want me to leave the army?” 

Carwood’s head snapped up and for a moment he could only stare at Ron, completely speechless. “I couldn’t ask that of you,” he managed to say despite how taken aback he was.

Ron was dead serious. “Of course you could,” he said like it was the matter of only forming those words. 

He was right, of course. Carwood could make that demand of Ron, even though he didn’t think he was entitled to. What shocked him was the earnest expression on Ron’s face that said that he’d do so if Carwood only asked.

“But that’s your career,” he said softly, “I can’t ask you to give that up just to make me happy.”

Ron didn’t falter but pressed on. “But you could. Do you want me to?”

Carwood’s thoughts were racing in every direction, too fast for him to grasp. His heart pounded harder the longer he put off picking a direction and answering. He had to consider that they were standing on the edge, and no matter what he felt entitled or justified to want or ask, nothing was just going to stay the same. 

“I miss you so much when you’re gone,” he said a rush, his heart thumping painfully, “but it’s not that. At least – it’s not just that, that you’re not here.”

“What is it then?” 

“It’s… It’s your letters. It’s going to work and coming home. And it’s answering everyone’s questions and feigning off all these little things from people who care about me but don’t understand…”

“What about my letters?” Ron asked, a crack of something worried and vulnerable appearing into his determined voice. 

Carwood had to swallow around his tongue that felt swollen in his mouth, unwilling to form words. “I love your letters when they first arrive,” he confessed. “But then I read them again, over and over again, and they are just so… They make me feel worse every time. I feel so diminished, like I’m just a casual friend to you, someone who doesn’t matter all that much.” He knew the words must have hurt, they were already heavy and thorny in his mouth when he said them, but because of that he couldn’t hold them in either. 

Ron didn’t have a reply, but something in his eyes dimmed and he lowered his gaze. 

“I was visiting my mother last weekend,” Carwood said. 

Ron didn’t look up, but his head tilted at the sudden change of subject. 

Carwood went on: “How long have we been together?”

Ron blinked, then looked aside to do the math in his head. “Around eight years, I think,” he said.

“Eight years. We’ve been together for eight years, and my mother didn’t even remember you by your name.”

Ron looked at him, trying to make sense of the words. He couldn’t, and his determined battle face was slowly turning into a frown. “So… You want to take me home to meet your mother now?” he asked. He tried to suppress it, but Carwood picked up on the frustration in his voice.

He shrugged harshly. “I don’t know. Maybe? Maybe I’d like someone to know that I have someone special in my life, even if – Look, I know we can’t tell anyone exactly, and I would never endanger your place in the military, but it’s just… I just feel like we’ve been driven so deep into hiding and that we do it so well that we might as well not be together at all.”

The weight of the words hit him fully only after they had left his mouth, and by then it was too late to take any of it back. Carwood had only spoken his mind, but the sound of his own words made something cold slip into his belly and shock him. Ron was staring at him like he had been slapped. 

Either one of them couldn’t speak for a moment, they could only stare across the distance that felt greater than ever before. 

“Do you really mean that?” Ron asked. 

Carwood could have asked what part of it, but stalling wasn’t an option. Ron’s tone was too final to allow for any of that. He wanted the killing blow as quickly as possible. “Yes.”

His mouth tightened for a second and he nodded in a small jerk, his neck stiff. “Do you want me to move out?”

“I’ve been thinking of moving out, actually. I don’t think I want to stay in Boston.”

Ron’s face was stoic but ashen. He swallowed with notable difficulty and nodded again, his eyes cast down. For a moment he seemed to hesitate, his shoulders shifting and the tight clutch of his hands unfolding as he started to pick on his nails. “Can I ask you something?” he asked in a quiet voice.

Carwood huffed, trying in vain to elevate heavy feeling closing around them, and nodded. “Yeah.”

“When you say we might as well not be together. Does that mean you don’t love me anymore?”

“No,” Carwood denied immediately, “I mean we’ve been cut into so many small pieces that I can’t tell if you do.”

When Ron looked up he looked wounded, but in a way a wild predator did. He looked hurt and fierce with something fiery welling up in his sad eyes. “I’ll quit the army to make you happy and to make you stay with me. If you want out of Boston, fine. It’s done. Let’s go. Where do you want to go? West Virginia? California? Alaska? Australia? Let’s go. Just tell me.”

The flood of devotion could have easily been read as aggression, and Carwood was breathless for a moment even though he knew better. For over a year he had had Ron’s timid letters and roundabout secrets, and they had been enough to dim the memory of the man himself. Direct, fearless, devoted, all of it was here in the dim kitchen burning just as bright as it always had.

“I want to wear your ring,” Carwood whispered, too honest to use a louder voice. 

Ron closed his eyes for a moment, and during that moment pain twisted his face. “That’s too risky. You know it is,” he muttered, his voice straining. 

“It doesn’t have to be a wedding band on the ring finger,” Carwood hurried to add, “hell, it doesn’t have to be a ring at all. It’s not that, it’s just…” he was trying to get a hold of something rational in the midst of emotion, the very core of what he was getting at and what he needed. “We’re so invisible to everyone else that we don’t even sleep in the same bed in our own home. I just want something real.” 

Ron was on his feet so swiftly that Carwood startled on his seat, and then Ron was standing right in front of him, almost touching but not quite. Carwood looked up to him and watched him reach under his shirt collar, pulling out a metal chain, his dog tags following. He pulled the chain over his head and then put it over Carwood’s.

“There.”

Carwood stared up into Ron’s earnest eyes and a bit stunned touched the familiar shape of tags now laying against his chest. 

He tried to say something, but there was nothing he could say, so he just reached up to grab a fistful of Ron’s shirt and pulled him down so he could take his face between his hands. Ron moved in his hold easily, always so indulgent. 

The contact was almost too much. It had been so long that simply looking into those familiar green eyes and feeling the shape of his face and the scratch of stubble under his palms bordered on overwhelming. Carwood had to stop there for a moment, like he had forgotten what to do with a man whom he could hold. 

Ron waited for him, his eyes burning and a serious wrinkle between his brows. Tentatively Carwood caressed his cheek, his thumb catching in the corner of his mouth and then brushing over his lower lip, prompting Ron to part his mouth. His mouth was as beautiful as he remembered it being, with the upper lip arching in cupid’s bow and the lower lip plush and pink. He couldn’t help but to lean in to kiss it, even when the contact felt like an electric shock. 

He had forgotten what kissing felt like. He had forgotten all about it.

He had forgotten the feel and the taste, how soft it was and how his breath rushed out at the intimacy, how something adoring and chaste turned into heat and desire with one wet flick of a tongue. 

“Carwood, I want to show you,” Ron said into the kiss, his lips moving against his, “I want to show you everything I feel for you.”

It sounded perfect, everything that they needed right now to fix that broken up connection between them. “Yeah, okay.”

“Come on. Let’s go to bed.”

Once Ron had gotten that close he seemed unwilling to take even a single step back. He pulled Carwood up from the chair and against him, and for a little while they lingered there like that, chest to chest and trading painfully sweet kisses. Ron was holding him by the front of his shirt, his fingers clenching and unclenching in the fabric. 

Then his knuckles pushed into Carwood’s chest, and with a little shove he guided him out of the kitchen. In the hallway there was a moment of stillness, and Carwood wondered if he would be pulled into Ron’s room or pushed into his, but for the moment they didn’t seem to be going anywhere. 

With a frustrated huff, Ron broke the kiss. “I can’t fix it all right now,” he muttered against Carwood’s mouth. “But maybe… Some of it. Go get your pillow and covers.”

So Ron’s room. It was nearly painful to tear himself away from Ron, but he knew that the sooner he did, the sooner he’d get back and be in his arms again. He went to his bedroom and without any care tossed the cover off his neatly made bed, scooped up the pillow and the comforter and hurried back. 

But instead of waiting for him in his bedroom, Ron met him in the hallway with his own pillow and covers under his arm. 

“Come on,” he said, took Carwood by the elbow and led him to the living-room. “Can’t have my man squeezing into a narrow bunk after missing me for so long.”

Carwood guessed his idea as soon as they stepped into the living-room and his eyes happened on the sofa. They dropped their pillows and covers on the floor and together pulled out the bottom compartment of the sofa, then unfolded the seating cushions over it until they had a double bed. 

Ron had taken the sheet from of his bed, and the threw it over the mattress, and Carwood caught the corners on his side. They put the sheet over the bed and folded the corners around the mattress, then tossed the pillows and the covers onto it. 

There was a warm feeling glowing in Carwood’s chest when he looked at the result. With the sheets, covers and pillows the sofa looked just like any couple’s bed, and it was theirs. It was not a bed in a hotel or a bumpy motel mattress, but a bed in their own home, and something about that soothed whatever pain had been growing its thorns into his heart. 

Ron didn’t seem to be able to wait for another second. He pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it over his shoulder, then got on his knees on the mattress and crawled towards Carwood until he was kneeling in front of him. His dark hair was clean and unruly, strands of it falling over his forehead.

“Come to bed with me,” he whispered, hands already undoing Carwood’s shirt buttons.

That warm glow in his chest turned into heat that spread. He felt it smouldering in his chest and belly, radiating from there down his thighs and up his back. His skin was itching to be touched, but at the same time too sensitive, the contact of another faded into a memory that couldn’t hold a candle to the intensity of the real thing. He dug his toes into the carpet and squirmed, but still leaned towards Ron like a moth to a flame, fully knowing he’d be burned. 

Ron pulled his shirt out of the way and pushed both his hands up his sides like he couldn’t stand another second without skin contact. Feeling his warm and greedy palms on his body like that made Carwood huff out a shocked breath.

“Come here,” Ron said urgently, “I want to kiss you. I want to kiss you until you can’t think anymore, and then I want to make love to you.”

Carwood hummed, pushing closer and getting on the bed. Together they fumbled until they got rid of his shirt which fell over the edge of the mattress into oblivion. The chain and the dog tags jingled before settling against his bare skin. 

Kissing wasn’t enough, Carwood discovered when they pushed together. Ron was pawing at his sides and his chest while Carwood’s fingers curled around the back of his neck, all the lost time and distance that had been stretching between them now condensed into starvation for touch. Carwood felt his skin prickling all over when Ron touched him, he was already straining hard in his pants from kissing alone, and all of it was simultaneously too much and not nearly enough.

Their kissing was nothing more than hunger passed between them, and Ron let his hands slide down to Carwood’s waist so that he could pull him up against himself, one thigh hooked around his hip, and then lay him down on his back.

Carwood sighed when he was laid down and automatically leaned his head back so that Ron could kiss down his neck like he always loved to do.

“I want to make love to you,” Ron said into his ear, lips caressing the shell before slipping onto his jaw and neck. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about this, and I want to do it all. I want to make love to you again and again, in every way, until you can’t stand any more of it.”

“Yes, yes, Ron, yes,” Carwood answered, only half understanding what he was agreeing to and not caring one bit. He was busy getting Ron out of his trousers, the simple belt buckle feeling very complicated in his trembling hands. “Anything, anything.”

Their first round was rushed and frenzied, fuelled by aching desperation and roaring longing that demanded to be sated. The fire burned too hot for the both of them, but the only way to soothe it was to burn it out, which they did with their naked bodies pressed together. 

They were all red swollen lips and sweaty hands desperately wanting to touch everywhere at once. Nothing was too much or too intimate, and whatever the other happened to want, the other yielded to with the greatest joy. 

Carwood let Ron do whatever he wanted and just curled his hands and legs around him and hanged on, head tipped back and letting out a moan after moan towards the ceiling. He had forgotten the noises he made, and long ago he would have been embarrassed, but not anymore, not when he knew how his voice made Ron spur on and turn a little keener, a little wilder, and he felt teeth on his skin. 

In a way it was a lot like their very first time, only their first time had been fully clothed and clumsy in the backseat of a bulletproof Mercedes, but just as desperate. Christening that car like that had made it so sacred to Ron that when demanded to hand it over to a superior officer, he had rather driven it off a cliff than let any other soul claim it from him. 

Carwood remembered that with a nostalgic grin on his face when he came for the first time that night, sweaty in their shared sheets and crying out breathlessly into Ron’s shoulder when they rocked through their release together. They stayed tangled up for a moment longer before rolling over to lie side by side and catch their breaths. 

“Don’t fall asleep,” Ron said as soon as his breath was even enough to form words. “I’ll want you again soon.”

Carwood was still gasping next to him and it turned into a huffing laugh. “I already told you: anything.” He lay exactly where he was but reached out a hand to touch Ron. His knuckles happened on his arm, and he let them follow the line of his bicep up and down in a lazy caress. 

They lay side by side in the midst of the covers, sweat cooling on their skins but the desire only momentarily dormant. 

It wasn’t just sex that Carwood had missed. Sex was easy, and if he was the type he’d only need to go find a certain kind of a bar to find it for a night. But there was more to it than a bodily ritual here in their sheets, in the way they knew how to pleasure each other and then wanted to lie together afterwards and touch each other with gentle fingertips. 

Their first tussle had made them break out in sweat enough that instead of the suffocating scent of laundered sheets and bleach they were surrounded by the smell of each other, sweat and salt and sex. The sheets felt softer now, not stiff and clean but wrinkled and broken in. 

Ron turned his head to look at Carwood but said nothing. He reached over with his hand and took Carwood by the wrist, turning his arm over so that he could smooth his finger along the tender skin of the inner side. It was strange how Ron could make such an innocent caress feel so possessive, but by now Carwood had learned not to wonder about it, just enjoy it. Ron had a way to make even a man of his posture and build feel like a cat with his belly up, soft and sensual and inclined to give in to excess. 

Carwood arched his back and rolled over to press against Ron’s side. It was too hot and too soon, but the heart wanted what the heart wanted. “Darling?”

“Yes?” Ron asked, and his tone made it obvious that it would also be the answer to anything Carwood would suggest. 

“I want to taste you.”

It took a while to get the second round started, but it just got them more time to touch each other. Ron had lost all of what little softness he had had to him before deployment and was now thinner with hard lines of muscle under Carwood’s hands and mouth. He was perfect like that, like something out of dirty comic book, but it also filled Carwood with a need to look after him and nurse him back to peacetime health. Carwood’s fingers found a few new scars as well, wounds he hadn’t been there to care for, and he kissed every single one of them. 

He followed them down Ron’s body and found the familiar ones on the way, taking good care of each one, until finally he got to lay down between his legs. It took him a while to get used to using his mouth on a man after a long break, but it all came back to him quickly, something he had once learned and that didn’t ever really go away, and with Ron panting heavily and curling and twisting in his hold it was a pleasant lesson. 

Afterwards Carwood rolled back next to Ron but stayed where he was, curling around his legs and resting his head on his stomach. Ron stretched and pulled a comforter half on them, and Carwood accepted the caring gesture gratefully.

They rested in the warmth for a longer while this time and just held their bodies close together. In a way that was just as intimate as any form of sex, to just lie there and let the other feel every curve and angle of your bare body. It didn’t need a reason or an end goal, just being together like that was the purpose. Carwood dozed off for a moment, but came to from his borderline dreaming state when Ron’s hands started to wander again.

Carwood took a deep breath and arched against him, then rolled from his side into his back to allow him free roam. Ron’s fingers glided down his chest and belly, the side of his fingernails pressing against his skin in the gentlest of scratch. 

Carwood squirmed under the attention and nuzzled against Ron, inhaling his scent, a blend of cigarette smoke and perspiration. He reached with his hand blindly, finding Ron’s thigh. He stroked along its strong curve and felt the other man arching into his touch. Desire kindled again, and Carwood leaned his head back to look Ron in the eye. 

There was a flame in Ron’s eyes when he met his gaze, and he reached to cradle Lipton’s jaw with his palm, then stroked down his neck and along the line of his shoulder. 

Ron leaned towards him. “Again, love.”

“Yeah,” Lipton agreed in a sigh and crawled on top of him, the dog tags hanging between them.

Ron was beautiful under him, his cheeks flushed red and his chest rising and falling, his black hair damp with sweat and sticking to his forehead. Riding him was special kind of pleasure, slow but avid rocking of the hips while squeezing him between his thighs, and Ron rolling his strong hips with him with his hands squeezing his sides. 

It was one of the things Carwood loved most. There was both power in having Ron on his back underneath him, but vulnerability in the intimacy of taking him inside his body, and all the while they could look into each other’s eyes and know they both felt the same.

For a moment Ron let go of his hip and reached to touch the dog tags swinging across Carwood’s chest. “You look so good in my tags,” he panted, thumb pressing the warm metal against his skin. 

Carwood just smiled at him. Smiled, and then whined in a keen voice when Ron took him just right, his hand never leaving the tags on his chest. 

Finally they could just lay still, sated and calm and content in their intimacy, wrapped into each other in a loose embrace under the covers, Carwood’s head resting on Ron’s chest and Ron’s hand stroking his hair. Pressed so close together under the thick covers it quickly became hot, and Ron patted Carwood on the shoulder. 

“Move for a second. I’m going to fetch cigarettes.” 

Carwood mumbled something vaguely agreeing and allowed Ron to untangle them. He didn’t have to go far for a smoke, just reached over the edge of the sofa to the floor, found the bundle of his trousers. After finding what he wanted, he rolled back next to Carwood with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in hand. 

He lit up one and offered a puff for Carwood. They laid back down side by side, smoking the single cigarette together, Ron holding it and offering every second or so drag to Carwood from his fingers.

The icy distance had melted away and something had fallen back into its proper place. It was easy to be close like that, warm and secure now that they had reminded themselves and each other that they belonged there.

“I’m sorry I’ve been gone,” Ron said in a smoky exhale.

Carwood shook his head “Don’t be sorry. It’s your life, and you have your duty. It’s not your fault this is hard.”

Ron let out a grumpy noise, vaguely disagreeing with the circumstances. “I want you to be happy.”

“And I want to be happy with you,” Carwood countered. He tried to be assertive, but it was hard when Ron brought a cigarette to his lips with two delicate fingers, the very image of an indulging lover.

“Then we’re going to stay together, somehow,” Ron said. He might have been indulging, sometimes too much so when Carwood was concerned, but he never said meaningless things or made empty promises. 

“I want to,” Carwood said, the pain from the last six months straining his voice, “I really do. I just wish it hurt less.”

Ron quirked his mouth joylessly, and that was all Carwood needed to see that the pain wasn’t just on his side or in his head. Seeing the expression on Ron’s face tugged at his heartstrings and evoked his natural need to comfort, but if he had learned one thing during their time apart, it was that some wounds weren’t that easily soothed.

He could only crawl near Ron and hug him close, press his lips against his shoulder and hope they could stand the pain.

They lay quietly like that, the cigarette slowly burning out, Carwood holding Ron by the arm and stroking his leg with his foot, while Ron smoked and occasionally reached over the side of the sofa to flick ash into the ashtray on the side table. 

They smoked the cigarette down right to the filter, and just before his fingers burned, Ron rose up just enough to squish it into the ashtray.

He flopped down and turned onto his side, shifting under the covers and on the pillow and closer in Carwood’s loose embrace until he found a comfortable position.  
He pulled his arm from Carwood’s hold, and instead took his hand into his, turned it over and brought the knuckles to his lips. “I love you.” 

Something stuck in Carwood’s throat. He smiled, smiled helplessly full of unbearable tenderness towards him that he didn’t know what to do with. “I love you, too,” he said back. 

“I don’t want you to forget that, ever again,” Ron said gravely. 

Carwood sighed. “I’m sorry I did. I should trust you more. I know that –”

“Shh,” Ron hushed him firmly and leaned in to kiss him to be certain. “Don’t apologize. I missed you too, and I feared you wouldn’t want to wait.” He spoke softly and easily, soothed by their closeness. 

Carwood let out a muted laugh, not really amused but trying to lessen the gravity of emotion around them. “You know, I didn’t even know what love was before you came along.”

Ron tightened his hold, and his cheek came to rest on his head. “I did,” he said, “Or more like I knew what it wasn’t. I came to accept what it was when I met you. I haven’t ever felt guilty about a single thing between you and me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes. This is perfect,” he swore, then kissed him on the forehead, on the temple, on the arc of his cheekbone. “Mm. When we move, we need to pick a place that’s big enough to have a workshop for you.”

Carwood smiled, easily tempted to dream in this state. He stretched and got comfortable on his place, or as comfortable as he could on the thin mattress of the sofa, but having Ron so close to him made up for it. “The first thing I’m going to make is a bed for us.”

Ron hummed with approval. “Good. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep alone after this night.”

Carwood huffed. “Wait until we actually try to sleep. Maybe I snore or kick.”

“Maybe I do.”

“We’ve been billeted together, I know you don’t.”

They curled up under the covers and ended up lying on their sides, facing each other. Their knees knocked together but they fit together comfortably. Carwood tried to dig up an occasion when they had slept a whole night in the same bed but came up empty. Whenever they had shared a bed it had been only for a while to make love and then retire to their separate ones to sleep. Sometimes they had lingered to be close to each other for a little longer, but never had they actually just went to sleep. 

It felt good. Good and natural, that’s what Carwood decided when he curled an arm around his pillow. He rather liked the idea of going to bed with Ron every night, going to sleep and waking up next to him. It felt like a cornerstone that should have been laid a long ago.

“Do you think we’ll have nights like this often?” he mused out loud.

Ron quirked a brow at him. “Nights when we fuck each other sore? Yeah, I’m sure.”

“No, I meant- Alright, maybe a bit that too,” he admitted and laughed. “I meant, do you think everyone talks about things like this in their beds?”

“No, absolutely not,” Ron answered right away, dead serious. “I’m sure our bed is nothing like anyone else’s, just like we are not like anyone else. I’m also sure ours is better.” 

Carwood hid his smile in his pillow and hooked a foot around Ron’s ankle. “Yeah, I think I agree.” 

Ron shifted closer to him and wrapped his comforter around himself tighter. He lay on his back but shifted every now and then, clearly in the process of making the transfer between hard army bunks and the soft mattress at home. His movements didn’t disturb Carwood, on the contrary the constant weight of his body and the warmth he radiated lulled him towards sleep.

“Eight years,” Ron muttered.

“Hm?” Carwood answered, only half awake.

“Eight years, Carwood,” Ron repeated, slightly clearer. His hand found his briefly on top of the covers. “That’s not nothing.” 

“Yeah, you’re right. That’s something.” That was something that warmed him down to the bone and the thought followed Carwood into his peaceful dreams. 

Even with the distant noise of the city, their apartment was quiet at night and the curtains kept the outside world out where it belonged. Curling around each other to sleep was like the first day of recovery after harsh illness, their dreams were heavy and both shared a sense of raw vulnerability, but it was easy to breathe once again. 

Brought together like edges of a wound, they were healing.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Erasure](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21669640) by [Lysel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lysel/pseuds/Lysel)


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